Palestine Embassy Urges Global Action, Accountability On Nakba Anniversary

KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 (Bernama) -- The Embassy of Palestine in Malaysia has urged the international community to uphold international law and ensure accountability over continuing violations against Palestinians.

In a statement issued in conjunction with the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the embassy said the destruction unfolding in the occupied Palestinian territories was a pattern of violations in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and binding international resolutions.

It also called for an end to the entrenched system of impunity and urged the international community to hold Israel fully accountable for its continuing crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The embassy reiterated its absolute and categorical rejection of all policies of occupation, settlement expansion, annexation, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

The statement stressed that the issue of Palestinian refugees remains at the core of the Palestinian cause, while reaffirming that the right of return is a permanent legal, historical, collective and individual right that does not expire with time and cannot be nullified by force.

According to the embassy, the right is affirmed under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and cannot be replaced, circumvented or dissolved through schemes of resettlement, forced displacement or so-called alternative solutions.

The embassy also defended the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), describing it as a fundamental international obligation.

“Any attempt to undermine, weaken or terminate this mandate constitutes an assault on the international legal order itself and a direct attempt to erase the legal existence of Palestinian refugees,” it said.

The statement further said that refugee camps such as Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm are subjected to repeated invasions, systematic destruction and forced displacement.

It also reaffirmed support for “the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Nakba in Arabic means “catastrophe”. It refers to the 1948 Palestinian exodus, in which around  700,000 Palestinians were displaced or fled during the conflict surrounding the creation of the state of Israel.

Nakba is observed annually on May 15, and it is a day of remembrance for Palestinian displacement and loss of land.

-- BERNAMA